as boundless as the sea
by wecouldbegigantic
Summary: A class on Shakespeare has Anne rethinking her friendship with a certain boy.


Gilbert Blythe had a way of looking at her that made her knees shake.

It had taken her a while to notice, but once she had, she couldn't stop seeing it – the way his eyes scanned her whole body, as if he was peering into her very soul. It was captivating, his gaze, and so often she found herself locked in it, like she couldn't look away, as if she'd been put under some sort of spell.

Even now, while she lay across one of the school tables, eyes squeezed shut, doing her best not to twitch, she could feel his eyes hot on her.

" _Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace_." Gilbert's voice was both warm and soft, and as she felt his finger trail gently across her arm, she felt goose bumps prickle up on her skin, not least of all in anticipation of what was coming next. " _And, lips, oh you, the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss, a dateless bargain to engrossing death_."

And then, after a short pause, she felt his lips press against her cheek, and it sent something spinning in her stomach.

There was a silence in the room, and then a few titters. Anne did her best to keep her eyes shut tight, to keep in character despite her desperate desire to fidget.

Then, Gilbert was speaking again. " _Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide. Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on the dashing rocks thy seasick, weary bark. Here's to my love! O, true apothecary. Thy drugs are quick. Thus, with a kiss, I die_."

His last words stewed against the silence, and for a few moments, Anne let the drama of the moment sink in, her heart thudding hard in her chest. Then, the spell was broken as the room broke into applause, and Anne's eyes snapped open as she sat sharply up onto the desk, looking anywhere but at Gilbert.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" Miss Stacy said, clapping her hands. "Gilbert, excellent job. You've done Shakespeare proud."

The classroom was still cheering, and many of their classmates had come to clap Gilbert on the back, but when she risked a glance at him, she saw that he was staring straight at her.

They were sixteen.

Years had passed since that day that she'd whacked him over the head with her slate, and their bitter rivalry had become, which – eventually – had become a lot less bitter and a lot more friendly, but it was only recently that she'd begun to notice _more_.

There was the way his dark hair curled around his forehead, or the way his eyes shone when they went toe to toe in class, or the way that he had dimples when he smiled. Something had ever so slightly shifted in the way that she thought about Gilbert.

Not that she would ever mention that to Diana, who, as soon as class was over, linked arms with Anne and dragged her off the path home, talking a mile a minute about the scene in class.

"Doesn't Gilbert make a rather dashing romantic hero?" Diana was saying, a grin spread across her face. "The way he looked at you was so sorrowful, I wish you could have seen it, Anne. It was like you really were lying dead in front of him. I thought he might shed a tear."

"He's a fine actor, I must admit," Anne said, "not that I could tell, with my eyes shut."

She kept her eyes straight on the path ahead, trying not to think about how her cheek was still buzzing from where Gilbert's lips had been.

"Oh, but Anne, I'm not sure he was acting," Diana said, a wry half-smile on her face, her eyes glittering. "The way he was looking at you then was the same way he looks at you most of the time."

"Looks at me how?"

"Like you're the most divine creature he's ever seen."

Anne spluttered. "He doesn't look at me like _that_ ," she said, shaking her head furiously. "Honestly, Diana, I don't know how you come up with these things..."

Diana stopped short and came in front of Anne, taking her friend by the shoulders. "Oh, Anne, you must feel _something_. The way he looks at you – well, it's like sparks."

"I feel nothing for him," Anne lied, firmly. "Gilbert Blythe is my dear friend. Nothing more."

Still, that didn't stop her heart thudding the next time she and Gilbert met to review their classes.

They'd taken to studying together – exams were looming ahead in the future, and the two had always been each other's best motivators, but now, sitting just inches away from him in the grass, books spread open around them, she suddenly felt so aware of him.

Being alone with Gilbert suddenly felt dangerous in a way that it never had before – which was odd, because in so many ways, there was no one she felt safer with than him. She knew that he'd never judge her, as he'd proven time and time and again.

When she was with him, she felt like she was the furthest she had ever been from the orphanage, her old life merely a dim echo that she'd left behind long ago.

Gilbert was her friend, her true friend, and she knew that for certain. Or, she _thought_ that she knew that for certain.

One literature class and a particular Shakespeare play were putting that all into question.

She watched him as he read aloud from the book, transfixed on the way his eyes were flitting down the page.

" _If I profane with my unworthiest hand, this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand, to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss_ ," he said.

Anne ducked her head, her cheeks flaming crimson. If it wasn't enough to be sitting mere centimetres away from him, hearing him talking about kissing was enough to send her right into a fluster.

"Anne? Are you alright?"

Anne snapped her head up and saw that Gilbert was staring down at her, his brow furrowed.

"Yes," she said, quickly, "yes, yes, why wouldn't I be?"

"You missed your line."

"Oh!" Anne's eyes flickered down to the page and then back up to him. "Sorry... I must have been distracted."

Gilbert looked at her, giving a soft smile. "I thought that you would be all over Shakespeare. Aren't tragical romances your thing?"

Anne had to look away from him then, her face still flushed bright red. "Yes," she swallowed, "yes, they are, I suppose."

Her heart was hammering as she pulled her book back onto her lap, forcing herself to focus on the words, and not on the boy sitting beside her.

" _Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this, for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss_ ," she said, letting herself get lost in the words, remembering how much she dearly loved Shakespeare. "Oh, but that gives me such a thrill, the thought of such passion coming from a simple touch."

Then she remembered who she was talking to, and let eyes fall back down to the page, her cheeks hot.

"The bard certainly had a way with words."

Gilbert's voice sounded odd somehow, almost strained, and when she risked a look back at him, she found that he wasn't looking at her – he'd suddenly become very interested in a single blade of grass in front of him.

There was a long silence, and then, Gilbert spoke again.

"Is this your ideal then, to be swept up into a romance with a handsome stranger?"

His voice still sounded strained.

Anne took a deep breath. It felt as if her lungs couldn't possibly get enough air, but suddenly, she felt as if there something she needed to say, and before she knew what she was doing, she had taken Gilbert's hand in hers.

His eyes widened at the contact, his fingers curling around hers. "Anne, what—"

"Whilst lines like ' _my bounty is as boundless as the sea,_ _my love as deep; the more I give to thee,_ _the more I have, for both are infinite'_ do give me such a thrill," she said, her eyes closing as she quoted the line, opening again as she spoke once more, "I have begun to wonder if perhaps a tragical romance is not quite the ideal I'm looking for."

Gilbert was staring at her again, that intense gaze of his holding her steady. She faltered over the next few words, "P-perhaps the best love, the deepest love – begins first in friendship, and the best love stories aren't the ones start fast and end tragically, but the ones that begin slowly, and end happily. Maybe the best love is when you don't realise it's love to begin with, not until you've spent years by someone's side, arguing with them, challenging them, _loving_ them."

She squeezed his hand and watched as the realisation of what she was saying dawned on him. For a moment, he said nothing, his mouth gaping open.

The silence lasted a little too long for Anne's tastes. "Oh, for goodness sake, Gil, do say something."

"Anne," he finally said, the word dropping from him in a gasp, a smile spreading across his face. His hand reached up to cup her cheek, his thumb swiping across her skin. "Oh, Anne, I have been longing for you from the moment that your slate hit my head."

Anne's heart soared, air finally surging into her lungs as her world spun, her fingers coming up to hold Gilbert's hand against her cheek. "You have?"

Gilbert nodded, dimples pinching his cheeks from smiling so hard. Anne broke into a smile too, leaning forward so that their forehead's touched, her arms wrapping around his neck. All at once, she felt so full of emotion, that all she could do was cling to him and hold on tight.

"Hey," he said, softly. "Why are you crying?"

"I just," she said, sniffed, and then tried again, "I never thought this would happen to me."

"Don't cry, Anne," he said, lifting up to wipe away her tears with his thumb. " _Move not, while my prayer's effect I take."_

Then he leaned forward and kissed her softly, their eyes fluttering shut. Anne's heart thudded, and she felt it beat in time with Gilbert's. Her fingers trailed across his jaw, curling into the hair at the nape of his neck.

When they pulled away, he was looking at her again, this time, in reverence, and Anne felt as if the world had been made anew, the air between them crackling with new possibility.


End file.
